Good on yar Ken Jeffreys you are spot on with evry thing you have said, its a pitty a few still refuse to see the woods for the trees or just don't want to execpt what Tasmania has achieved in the name of forest conservation and why that achievement is world class.

The Regional Forest Agreement process, established an independent panel of world-respected environmental scientists to develop nationally agreed criteria for a compensative, adequate and representative forest reserve system. Resulting in recommended non-mandatory reservation targets of 15% forest biodiversity, 60% old-growth forests and 90% high quality wilderness. With assigned for assessment, detailed descriptive criteria. (Forest had to be forest)

The 1997 Tasmanian RFA process employed over a two-year period several hundred highly qualified environmental and resource scientists to rigorously and objectively evaluate forest against the criteria. Resulting in reservation levels of 40% (1,269,000 hectares) forest biodiversity, 69% (851,000 hectares) old-growth and 95% (1,836,300hectares) high quality wilderness.

The 2004 Tasmanian Community Forest Agreement upgraded these levels to 1,465,000 hectares (47%) forest biodiversity, 1,004,480 hectares (80%) old growth and 1,885,300 (97%) high quality wilderness.
Not a bad achievement when compared against the 10% forest reservation target set by the Convention of Biological Diversity, and agreed by the WWF and the IUCN.

Additional good reading is the just released Sustainability Indicators for Tasmanian Forests 2001-2006 available at DPAC as part of the Tasmanian RFA 10 year review.

Well done Mr Jeffreys, the media does allow its self to be taken in by dark greens, last year Tasmanian ABC news run a anti forestry story with supporting footage from Doctors For Forests. Following questioning the ABC took a while to get the truth with the filming date changing from 2006 to 2004 then 2003 finally some time during 2000.

The ABC’s Complaint Report is an interesting read.
7pm Television News
25 April 2006
The complaint
The ABC received two complaints from a single complainant about the source of footage used during a news story about tax cuts for timber plantations. The report included statements about the poisoning of native animals and the footage depicted a dead native animal. The ABC’s initial response to the complainant advised that the footage was supplied by the group Doctors for Forests and was filmed during 2004. The complainant was unhappy with this response and wrote again to the ABC, stating that the source of the footage was not attributed during the story and that the date of the footage could not be correct because it appeared to be the same footage used in the Four Corners program ‘Lords of the Forests’.

Findings
In a further response to the complainant the ABC acknowledged that the footage was filmed in 2003, not in 2004 as the complainant had initially been advised. The ABC also agreed that the footage should have been accompanied by a caption identifying that it was supplied by
Doctors for Forests, because it was likely that it had been used as media release by a lobby group. The ABC apologised to the complainant and the News Editor put out a memo to all of his staff warning of the dangers of using third party material.

Following receipt of this further response from the ABC, the complainant raised further questions about its accuracy. Additional information was sought from News & Current Affairs, and the ABC acknowledged that it had again provided an inaccurate response to the
complainant. The ABC apologised for these regrettable and embarrassing errors in its advice to the complainant.

Drive from Burnie to Tullah - down the Murchison H'way or the Heemskirk to the West - apart from strategically placed screening plots about 20 meters deep the place is clear felled from horizon to horizon - with hectares of barren windrows of useless timber - or miles of mono culture pine - and all this within 80 ks of Cradle Mountain where for one of your testricles you can rent the use of a beer.

You want to see old growth forst in Tassie - stand by the side of any road and wait for them to be driven by on the back of a truck - and the tallest man made structure in Burnie - is a pile of wood chips.

Tassie is green alright - but a lot of the green is where the rot has set in.

Drive from Burnie to Tullah - down the Murchison H'way or the Heemskirk to the West - apart from strategically placed screening plots about 20 meters deep the place is clear felled from horizon to horizon - with hectares of barren windrows of useless timber - or miles of mono culture pine - and all this within 80 ks of Cradle Mountain where for one of your testricles you can rent the use of a beer.

You want to see old growth forest in Tassie - stand by the side of any road and wait for them to be driven by on the back of a truck - and the tallest man made structure in Burnie - is a pile of wood chips.

Tassie is green alright - but a lot of the green is where the rot has set in.

Thanks Ken your article reminded me of a ABC Four Corners program from late last years titled The A Team where a startling admission was made by a green activist that it is common practice to collect road kill possums and other road kill animals, to then keep them in a fridge for latter use to, and to quote “to make it, sort of, real to the public’.. To Rod up the track, wonder if Doctors for Forests was using the same fridge?

Just found the Four Corners A Team transcript (it was televised 2 Oct 06) and the geenies admission is startling to say the least.

The damming passage from the transcript reads.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Tracy and her A-team colleagues filed extensive written reports on Environment Victoria's discussions and plans. They reported when and where demonstrations would be held, and recorded in detail any reference to Amcor. They also revealed some of the greenies' own tricks - like planning a graphic photo display about the effects of logging, using dead possums from a collection the forest campaigner kept in his freezer.
Do you remember that discussion?
GERALDINE RYAN, FORMER VOLUNTEER, ENVIRONMENT VICTORIA: I remember that was more than once. That he...he used to collect, if a possum was a road kill or an animal was a road kill, would collect them and keep them in the fridge. It was just again...to make it, sort of, real to the public.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: What, animals out of the forest campaigner's freezer?
GERALDINE RYAN: Yes.

So Bas, how did all those animals die? Did Sally Neighbour kill them?